Thursday, 10 March 2011

Being good enough

I find humanity's need for change to be one of the most frustrating and equally beautiful things there is. Our desire to be better, faster, smarter, stronger, to continuously improve on who we are and what we have can be both our best trait and our worst. At a big picture level it has resulted in life saving medical technology, global communication and innumerable discoveries that make our every day lives easier as well as weapons that can erase our entire existence, technology that is killing our planet and the ability for women and children to be exploited in ways we could never have imagined. On a personal level the drive to be better can be a highly motivational one but it can also lead to the slow destruction of one's soul.

We humans have a tremendous capacity to undermine ourselves, to make ourselves feel that some how we are worth less than others, that we can never match up the the qualities we envy in others. It seems that the ability to be happy with who we are is always just out of reach. Yet is our differences, the things that set us apart from others, that make us amazing and beautiful. We need to stop comparing ourselves and our lives to others and understand that what each of us has to offer is just as valuable. You may not be the most popular, the best looking, the thinnest, the smartest or the toughest, but are the people you perceive to be those things happy either? Or are they looking at you and thinking the same things? By what standard are things like beauty measured anyway? Surely things like kindness, compassion, humour, generosity and love are the best qualities we could hope to have anyway. Some of the most attractive people I have ever met would be considered average looking if not for their ability to believe in themselves. It is the shine from within that creates true beauty.

What you might not know is that while you are so busy concentrating on trying to be someone else, to live up to the standard, to be good enough you might already be all that someone else needs. You might already bring a smile to the lips of a pretty girl or make the heart of a handsome man race. Everyone has one very special thing to offer the world and that is themselves. Who you are might be just exactly the right thing and you don't even know it. So lets stop trying to be someone else and be ourselves, because if you aren't being you then who will be?